Batavia's disaster-services director, fire chief disagree

Batavia's fire chief and Emergency Services and Disaster Agency director were directed Wednesday to take the first step of improving the agency and its relationship with other city departments: Come up with a new ESDA mission.

They were directed to do so by the city council's city services committee after a sometimes-heated discussion Wednesday revealed a strained relationship between ESDA and city administration.

In January, Mayor Jeff Schielke proposed merging ESDA and the fire department. He thinks the city stands a better chance of getting the state accreditation needed to receive federal and state disaster-preparedness grant money if ESDA is supervised by a full-time paid employee.

The committee then assigned Fire Chief Randall Deicke to study the matter. Deicke's report made a case for the merger, touching on accountability, liability, training, equipment, duties and more.

“I have trouble with many of the things that are said in here,” said Jeffrey Glaser, the agency's director, who has been with ESDA since 1974. Talk about making ESDA more “accountable,” in terms of chain of command and spending, bothered him. “I don't know of any time that ESDA wasn't accountable.”

Glaser handed out a memo with a point-by-point response. In it, he reiterated that he and the ESDA volunteers oppose becoming part of the fire department. He wrote that there was lack of communication with City Administrator Bill McGrath, that an unspecified person told him ESDA was not a “real department” and that he was told not to attend department-head meetings.

He found Deicke's recommendation that ESDA report to a deputy fire chief “insulting.” Glaser also pointed out that ESDA hasn't received a new vehicle since 1995; it was promised an SUV in 2000, Glaser said. Some of its vehicles are nearly 40 years old, and volunteers maintain the vehicles and emergency equipment. And the mission statement on the department's Web page? Glaser doesn't know who wrote it, but it didn't come from him or any of the ESDA volunteers, he said.

Glaser said he has asked in his budget request for several years for a new truck; McGrath said Glaser hadn't supplied reasoning for the request.

ESDA is responsible, under state law, for developing and maintaining the city's emergency operations plan. Glaser said all the other city departments have failed to regularly update their portions of the plan. He said he didn't push updates on the assumption that their plans must still be relevant, which committee chairman Jim Volk criticized, saying it was Glaser's responsibility to get the updates.

McGrath said the person in charge of the emergency plan should be a city employee who can be held accountable for his actions.

“I want that to be a city employee who can be fired,” McGrath said, to which Glaser suggested hiring him for more hours. “I think after 38 years I deserve more,” Glaser said.

Glaser is appointed by the mayor and is paid for eight hours of work a month.

Alderman Vic Dietz said the city council shares the blame for the situation. “We the city council have denied these folks (ESDA). We have treated these people like redheaded stepchildren for 38 years.”

Deicke and Glaser are to report back to the committee in July. “We will try to look at it in a way that is more respectful of their (ESDA's) autonomy,” McGrath said.